In fiction, there are three kinds of history: past, future and alternative. Much of Poul Anderson's fiction is set in the past or the future with a smaller number of works set in alternative timelines, including one series with magical instead of scientific technology in the twentieth century.
Later science fiction writers, Harry Turtledove and SM Stirling, have specialized in the third kind of history, each generating several lengthy series set in divergent timelines. Worlds That Weren't is an anthology of original alternative history stories by four different authors. SM Stirling comments in his afterword, pp. 149-152, that "Alternative history has many uses..." (p. 149) and that one such use is to restore the terra incognita that our twentieth century banished from Earth and even from Mars and Venus. An even more fundamental use is to remind us that our timeline, in which an asteroid killed the dinosaurs but no such catastrophe has as yet killed humanity, is just one of many possibilities.
We know of Stirling's Angrezi Raj timeline from 1878, the point of divergence, to 2025. In "Shikari in Galveston," Eric King and Ranjit Singh, both of the Peshawar Lancers, are in North America during the reign of Queen-Empress Elizabeth II (1989-2005). In The Peshawar Lancers, their sons, Athelstane King and Narayan Singh, also both of the Peshawar Lancers, are in India at the end of the reign of King-Emperor John II (2005-2025) and at the beginning of the reign of King-Emperor Charles III (2025- ). Narayan, but not Eric, survives into the later narrative. Eric never suspects that his daughter, Athelstane's sister, will become Queen-Empress.
These two works, set in different continents, are separated by a generation and thus are well on their way towards becoming a fictitious history. I have yet to read "Shikari..." to its conclusion - but it must compete for reading time since I have been drawn back into Stieg Larsson's trilogy!
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Dang! You are making me regret not getting a copy of WORLDS THAT WEREN'T! (Smiles) My hope, as you know, was for Stirling to include "Shikari in Galveston" in a collection of his shorter works.
Since you like to discuss from time works by other authors you are reading, besides Poul Anderson, I should mention I'm reading a collection of the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Brownson, SELECTED POEMS, edited by Margaret Foster. I first came across EBB from Poul Anderson quoting the last stanza of her "A Musical Instrument" in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS. That verse has stuck in my mind ever since, and at long last I purchased a collection of Browning's poems (including the complete "A Musical Instrument").
One annoying feature was how Margaret Foster kept insisting in her prefaces that EBB was some kind of early 21st century "feminist." I'm simply not SEEING that I've read so far. I think it's absurd and wrong of critics to attempt forcing their preferred views into the works of writers who lived long before their time. But I'm trying to focus on EBB's poems and ignore the unconvincing commentary.
Sean
Sean,
And thank you for sharing yet another literary experience. Browning is relevant here because Anderson quotes her but we can, in any case, dispense with relevance if we want to!
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
BROWNING, not "Brownson," drat! I need to be more careful in witing my combox remarks! I'm MORTIFIED!!! (Smiles)
I agree we don't always need to be "relevant" in our comments. But it was nice being able to tie in Poul Anderson with Elizabeth Barrett BROWNING. I don't recall Anderson quoting EBB in any others of his works, tho.
Sean
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